Cassette Tape Memories
by ncfan
Summary: As she fades and he flickers, they are both blinded by the sun. AU. Shisui x Hinata. Oneshot.


**Characters**: Hinata, Shisui**  
Summary**: As she fades and he flickers, they are both blinded by the sun. AU. Shisui x Hinata. Oneshot.**  
Pairings**: ShiHina; Shisui x Hinata**  
Author's Note**: Let me say that if you want to know who turned me on to the idea of Shisui x Hinata, all the blame can be laid at the door of **coincident**, a very talented author; in particular, it was the oneshot _Some Words on Memory _that did the damage. And let me just say that, being new to this pairing, feedback would be especially appreciated.**  
Disclaimer**: I don't own Naruto.

* * *

The kunai are ringing, spears of light to her near-omniscient vision, when he blazes on through her life like a streak of lightning or a ball of fire, too brilliant and terribly beautiful to be ignored.

Hinata isn't entirely fond of autumn. When the leaves begin to lose chlorophyll, crinkling crimson and tawny, it reminds her that the world is dying again, and that maybe—she's always harbored this fear, from her childhood, even when her mother laughs, her cousin scoffs, and her father admonishes—this will be the year when the winters never abate, and it will snow, and snow, unto the ends of time.

Though it is autumn, the dying months are still early and the warmth has a touch of summer still locked inside, clutched tightly so as not to lose it quickly. Denial is the best friend of memory.

The fighting is starting to die down around her, tides that ebb instead of flow, and Hinata sweeps the area with her milky Byakugan, kunai ready in her hand since her chakra has diminished enough to make Jyuuken strikes inadvisable.

In streaks of black and red to mirror and opposite the Hyuuga shaded in white and lavender, the Uchiha are beginning to flee, dispersing in clumps like they always do. They don't ever stay long on the battlefield, preferring to hit and run instead of hanging in for the long haul. They've found themselves at a disadvantage here.

As they retreat through the trees, one Uchiha lingers behind, watching the others run. He's waiting for someone, Hinata realizes.

This is a man who is young still, no older than twenty-two or twenty-three, with, bizarrely for an Uchiha, a head full of black curls. He's tall and lean, with the aura of a caged lion, waiting for something, railing against bars.

In the moment when their eyes meet, a strange, slow grin comes over his face. For the scene, his grin is incongruous, too lighthearted and blasé in the face of blood and gore and dying groans. But it exists, and for a moment, Hinata watches as it blocks out the sun.

The moment passes quickly. The tall Uchiha spots the comrade he was waiting for, and thumps the slightly shorter man on the back, before the latter runs off and disappears into the trees with along with his kin. The one who made eye contact with Hinata lingers on a little while longer.

The sunlight dapples through the canopy as he catches her eyes once more. In a moment, he winks roguishly, and flickers out of view, quick as a dragonfly riding a friendly wind.

Hinata fights down the urge to raise an eyebrow. He just…_winked_ at her?

_An Uchiha with a sense of humor… This is new._

"Hinata-sama." A hand, firm and strong, taps her slight shoulder. "We have won the day. It's best to return to base now, before they have a chance to consider regrouping."

A soft, barely noticeable movement in her chin indicates a nod. "Alright," Hinata whispers, before following her kinsmen back towards home.

.

Legend has it that the Hyuuga were once an offshoot of the Uchiha clan. According to this legend (there are myriad others, but Hinata sees the most truth in this telling), the Hyuuga clan came about when an Uchiha woman was born blind. Her eyes were milky white and her parents despaired of ever making a warrior out of her.

It was soon discovered, however, that she still possessed a form of sight. Her Sharingan, mutated by her blindness, had inexplicably activated at the girl's birth. Though she still possessed the ability to see chakra like all Uchiha when they activated their Sharingan, she lacked the capability to record and replicate the techniques of other nin. Instead, she possessed a sort of sight that could see in all directions, even out of the back of her head (apart from a small blind spot on her neck), and could literally rove out for miles. This sight gave her a great advantage in battle.

Eventually, the blind Uchiha woman married a man named Hyuuga, and though her children could see, they inherited her mutated Sharingan and milky eyes.

Hinata prefers this version of events (just another way in which she is considered abnormal by the standards of her people), though the majority of her clan reject it as they find the thought of being descended from their eternal foes appalling. But there's a difference: unlike the rest of her clan, Hinata doesn't have the ability to lie to herself, doesn't possess any great talent for self-deception. She can see the resemblance between the Uchiha and the Hyuuga, plain as day.

As she wandered through the compound upon returning with her kin, few noticed Hinata. Few ever do; her skills in battle, while well-honed, are not anything magnificent and already does Hinata find herself eclipsed on the battlefield by her ten-year-old sister.

Neither gifted nor inept, she is instead simply mediocre, beneath the notice of those above her. If not for her unmarked brow, she could simply be another low-ranking Branch Member, no real importance attached to her at all.

While walking down roads of shadows makes on yearn for the sun, sometimes it is a relief to Hinata not to be noticed. If one goes unnoticed, they can't be hurt or broken or crushed. If one is unnoticed, then they can't be destroyed.

But she has to wonder about the young Uchiha. The one who had a smile brighter than the sun, who despite being an enemy, had the time to look at her.

.

"Oh, come on! What's inappropriate about it?"

Shisui believes strongly in living to the fullest extent possible. Whoever said "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" should be sainted, because it's _true._ In the world Shisui lives in, he _could_ die tomorrow, so why not live for the moment, and live for himself, instead of living for everyone else all the time? He's seen what living for everyone else instead of himself can do to someone. Just look at Itachi.

Speaking of Itachi…

Shisui's cousin shoots a glare at him out of tired eyes, drooping like purple curtains over dull windows. They stand sheltered in the mottled shade of the oak tree, surveying their clan's compound in the clearing, where grasses can't grow tall for all the feet stomping down on them.

"Several things." Itachi is always quiet and the level of his sonorous voice never seems to break (their voices both started changing at the same time, and Shisui was furious with the younger boy because his voice didn't break half as badly as his; something about Itachi hardly ever talking, or something like that), but Shisui has long since become accustomed to determining when Itachi is annoyed. Right now, his voice is clipped and barely audible; a sure sign of repressed rage. "Most importantly, she is a Hyuuga, our enemy; while what you did works well as a diversionary tactic, pursuing a relationship with her is perfectly out of the question." The word "enemy" comes without any real rancor on Itachi's part, and Shisui can't help but smile.

"Hey! Who said I was 'pursuing a relationship'?"

Itachi ignores him. "Second, you already choose to be overly familiar with many of our kinswomen and the maidservants of our clan. Surely that is enough for you, Shisui?"

A creature of impulse, Shisui sports a rakish grin as he answers. "I can't help it if I'm good with the ladies, otouto."

Use of the childhood honorific makes Itachi roll his eyes. "My cousin, the lady killer.

"Finally, I saw that girl." The Uchiha prodigy is noticeably prim now. "She was the same age as Sasuke, if not younger."

"What the hell does _that_ have to do with anything?" the curly-headed man scoffs, folding his arms around his chest.

Again, Itachi ignores him; he's gotten selective hearing down to a fine art. "And I conclude with this simple fact: It. Is. _Highly_. Inappropriate."

Shisui fingers the river stone he carries with him, blue-gray, flat and smooth, in his hands pensively. Callused fingers run across the smell of water that lingers on; alert, careful ears hear the smooth slopes of stone. Eyes see the coolness of the pebble in front of him, a substitute for meditation.

"You pick at everything, Itachi. The Hyuuga girl's probably forgotten all about that by now."

.

Lilac evening finds Hinata in a familiar place, sitting beside Neji on the soft grass, backs leaning against the thin wall of one of the outer Main houses, listening to their fathers talk inside; Hiashi calls upon his brother's advice often in these times. The wall is so thin that voices can be heard clearly through it (greatly aiding eavesdropping) and that Hinata often feels as if it might collapse under her weight if she presses her skin any more tightly to the thin, light brown wood.

She and Neji are not always the best of friends, on the best of terms; Hinata knows her cousin resents that her father was born first, that he must bear the brand of the Branch House, knowing that he is far more prodigiously gifted than the unmarked heiress. But they retain respect for each other, a certain camaraderie. Without prompting, Neji shadows his cousin, keeping a wary eye out for danger threatening to befall her slight shoulders; out of obligation, he says. And Hinata can see clearly what Neji is beneath "Branch House member" and "Hyuuga prodigy". She finds she likes what she sees under the surface far more than the mask-like personas.

And of course, they keep together out of the necessity that, both being half-Clan children, they are at times distanced by their pureblooded kin.

The wind whistles through ash trees on this evening, making slender trunks tremble, though from the wind or the oncoming cold Hinata can not tell. The blue light has not deepened enough that the swinging paper lanterns need to be lit. Everything is cold here, sterile and antiseptic, a little too clean, a little too pure. Nothing seems natural; everything is an artificial jungle of fashioned wood and stone walkways, alleys between houses filled with short, sweet grass.

Except, of course, when the sunset turns that deep shade of blue; when blue light washes over everything, it takes with it the hardest edges of houses and the sharp smell of civilization. It takes away the fear from Hinata's mind (though it leaves all the other ones vividly intact), that maybe the Hyuuga have cut themselves off entirely from Nature.

It does not, however, absolve her of the dread that every night that comes might never see a dawn. The two things Hinata fears above all others are winter and night.

This evening, Hiashi and Hizashi are speaking in hushed tones, too quietly for either of their children present to make anything out. Hinata can catch the urgency in their voices even without comprehending the words, can feel it permeate her, and her habit of twisting the fabric of her unblemished white kimono shirt (standard dress for the Hyuuga) becomes so violent that Neji notices and catches her wrist in his hand.

"You're going to tear the cloth," he whispers, not wanting to be heard by his father or his uncle.

Hinata bites her lip and nods, untangling her small fingers from her shirt. She complies only because she knows Neji has far more to lose than she were they to be found here, eavesdropping on the private conversations of the Hyuuga clan head.

Her cousin raises an eyebrow as she bows her head, sweeping an appraising look over the younger girl. "What are you so nervous about, anyway, Hinata-sama?"

She shakes her head vigorously, shying away from his gaze. "Nothing." She's long since overcome her stutter, but she still speaks in a whisper even at the best of times and she knows Neji has to strain to hear her every word.

Neji is plainly unsatisfied by this answer, but he isn't in the mood to press and goes back to staring with blank, lavender-tinted white eyes up at the evening sky, tracing the patterns of stars. Hinata kneads a bit of stray cloth in her pockets in the palms of her hands, fingers wrapping tightly around.

Neji is sixteen this year, considered a man by the traditions of his clan. His father takes him into counsel as he would any other trusted comrade (a point of pride for Neji that no one can begrudge him), and no one attempts to watch over him on the battlefield the way they would have three or four years ago.

Hinata wonders if she will ever be seen as an adult. She knows the time has not come yet, but she gets the foreboding feeling, from the looks relatives cast at her in battle and in peace, of pity, of exasperation, of wariness, that she may be treated as a child long after her sixteenth birthday. It's only natural that the eldest child of the clan head be protected, but this protection feels more like smothering. The one everyone ignores but at the same time wants to shelter, like a pretty song bird with clipped wings.

Sing for me only when I want you to, but do not try to fly away.

Inside, it sounds like the twins are wrapping up their conversation. Hinata shoots a wide-eyed glance at Neji.

"We should leave now," she whispers.

Neji nods, and they disperse into the encroaching night, back to their separate houses and their separate lives.

.

The world pinwheels, running laps around the sun, and Hinata finds that though she dreads the deep, dark quiet of night, she can think, uninterrupted and without fear of censure of the Uchiha. Her best thinking is done in the silent moments, in places where there is no sound but the soft breathing of her sister lying next to her on her tatami mat. Both reside in the same room in the Main household, with plain floors, plain walls, no furnishings except a full-length mirror, a chest of their clothes and a low table where they keep their hairbrushes. Hinata sleeps on her back, and with eyes open, there is nothing to do except trace the oval patterns of the wood on the ceiling, count grains, and think.

She doesn't know why her mind keeps wandering back to him. She doesn't even know his name, has no name to put to that open, starkly friendly face. Hinata isn't given to thinking overlong about someone, _anyone_, but now she can't keep the acquaintance made in battle out of her weary, sleep-longing mind.

He was unlike any Uchiha Hinata has ever met. Even only seeing him for a moment was enough; she has seen enough to confirm any thoughts she might have on that matter. He _smiles_. Really smiles, in a friendly, open way. No other Uchiha Hinata has ever met does that. If they smile, it is only in the way of a predator, a serpent or a cat, savoring the moment before the certainty of death in their fangs.

In the darkness, her fingers find her long black hair and start to twirl tendrils in knots around her skin. Hinata is no fool. She knows quite well that this may have only been a diversionary tactic—in fact, almost certainly was a diversionary tactic—, a move meant to catch her off guard so she wouldn't attack him, to give him time to escape with his friend. And if so, it worked all too well. But it still makes butterflies storm in her stomach, warm and welcome, to be singled out like this, even if it is by one she counts as foe.

"Hinata?" Hinata doesn't realize Hanabi is awake until the girl's eyes, lavender-tinted like her own, are on her, wide open in the darkness. The only light they have to see each other is the pale moonlight, cold and blue, bleaching away color from their faces, Hinata's pale face and Hanabi's sallow one. Long, dark brown hair falls over her little sister's features, obscuring the thin oval Hinata knows so well.

Hanabi's gaze is direct and forthright, as always, and underscores how the two sisters are as the sun and the moon; one radiates light to blind all others, and the other glitters with soft luminescence but can not produce light of its own. Hanabi is everything Hinata can not and will never be: ferocious and at times downright bloodthirsty on the field of battle, but at the same time able to shut off her bloodlust like a switch. She is straightforward and at times quick-tempered (Hanabi's short temper is legendary among the Hyuuga, such an uncommon trait for any of their get), but keeps up a veneer of respect when speaking with her father and the elders. She is like the Hyuuga in that way, if in that way only. Even when her back is bowed, her head is not.

Hinata and Hanabi are both so different from the rest of their family, but what puts up their divisions is that they are different from each other, too. Close, but too dissimilar to really forge the closest of bonds.

Having been exceptionally busy, Hinata hasn't had the chance to talk to her sister in—she blinks and has to strain to remember—… three days, she's fairly sure. Or maybe it's just two, or goes beyond that and bleeds into four. But they're talking now.

"What is it, Hanabi?" Hinata whispers, propping up on her side and one shoulder like her sister does, imperfect mirror images of each other. Hanabi fingers the cool linen sheets draped over her small frame, in a habit similar to Hinata's but less pervasive. Hanabi, at least, can control it.

Something in Hinata's face sets her off, because Hanabi frowns sharply as she stares at her. Hinata almost expects to see veins popping and bulging, waits to see her sister trying to get past her skin with their birthright. "Neji's right," the girl states critically. "You have gotten weird. What's up with you?"

As a matter of course, Hinata doesn't answer. How can she?

.

Shisui growls as he picks stubborn, quivering senbon (a girl from one of the Uchiha's client clans, Sasuke's training partner, is entirely too fond of needles) out of Sasuke's pale, taut, too-tense arms and legs. "Would you relax?" he snaps. "It'll be easier to pull the senbon out if they aren't lodged in rigid muscle." Sasuke, who is nothing if not a surly teenager, scowls up at him, obliging Shisui but saying nothing.

This shouldn't have to be happening, as Sasuke lies back slightly on the grass to let his cousin continue pulling tiny slivers of needles out of his rangy limbs, letting them disappear in the grass. They'll be discovered later, anyway, when some small child will alert her mother with agonized screams. Sasuke shouldn't have to train himself to the verge of exhaustion, shouldn't have to be putting himself full of holes like Swiss cheese, every single day.

Sasuke's brittle black eyes, as tense as his seized arms, seem to fear that Shisui will get into another of his infamous anti-war rants. But instead, all Shisui does is glare dully, not really angry with Sasuke as he is with everyone else around him, and say, "Where's your brother, anyway? I thought he was the one who usually wanted to play "Pluck the Hedgehog" after training."

A shrug follows, the epitome of adolescent apathy. "I don't know. Talking with Father, I think."

"Right." In one fluid movement, Shisui gets to his feet, jaw set, eyes gleaming towards the gate that signals the entry to their home, the middle of a wall of wooden planks. "You can do the rest of this yourself, I like to think."

If Sasuke protests, Shisui doesn't hear as he walks off. His mind is buzzing and being so single minded that Shisui, for whom multitasking has never come naturally, blocks out everything except what is of utmost importance to him. Reality is one path, not several.

He's inordinately angry, and isn't entirely sure why. Anger comes all too easily now, a viciously intense emotion that doesn't ebb as readily as it used to. Maybe Shisui's just finally managing to live up to the legacy of their clan, of anger and battle-love and never letting go of grudges. Personally, Shisui hopes not. He doesn't particularly _want_ to be like the rest of his clan.

Sometimes being different is just better.

The Uchiha clan compound is starting, somewhat, to fall apart, faintly dilapidated and ramshackle, the houses in narrow alleyways seeming more like slums, especially towards the outer edges (the compound walls are also the back walls of tenancy houses, to keep any possible invasion forces confused) though the interiors of these houses, are, for the most part, far more well-kept than their exteriors. Luxury and civilization has been sacrificed in the name of warfare and battle prowess.

As Shisui winds through rivers of alleyways packed with Uchiha and client clansmen and servants, huddled in the doorway, smoking pipes, conversing, he finally sees Itachi when the younger man stepping down from the house where his parents sleep, feet hitting the stone steps of the stoop like protests, their words housed in rhythm.

Itachi looks dull and gaunt as always, his dark eyes rimmed in red, pale face careworn and showing stress more overtly than any other member of the Uchiha clan and their allies. He may as well be doing the bulk of the fighting (which he is) and organizing all of the deployments (which he's not, but that's beside the point) himself.

The epitome of the gallant soldier. Shisui's lips tilt skywards in amusement, but it's a smile tinged in winter. No one could be less warlike than Itachi.

"Itachi!" Shisui waves his hand like a bird's wing set to fly, his anger starting to fade from him. "Where've you been, you little vampire? Shunning the sun again? Not good for you, otouto!"

Any laughter dies silently in Shisui's throat at the look on Itachi's face as he mutters tersely, "I need to talk to you. _Now_," and drags him into the nearest alleyway, stripes of light and shadow pushing on chiaroscuro as he talks.

.

Neji and Ko are both on guard duty on the wall that night—dreariness in the hot, sticky summer nights and sheer hell when snow is gathering like rains of dandruff on their shoulders—and it's their frantic shouting that wakes Hinata from her light, tossing-and-turning sleep. The dream is one she can't remember the moment her blank eyes snap open, but she doesn't concern herself with that.

Hanabi is sharp as kunai as she hops like a spring-loaded crossbow out of bed, legs splayed awkwardly and in any other situation—in different company and different times—indecently, her light nightshirt clinging to her thighs. "Was that Neji?" She tilts her head, half-curious and half-exasperated at the way Hinata _doesn't_ spring up with her, instead just sitting up, eyes darting to the window.

After a moment of staring, lips bitten, out the window, Hinata turns her head with agonizing slowness to her sister and nods.

They both dress in darkness, not bothering to pull the curtains shut—who's going to watch?—as they strip, the only concession to modesty being the way they avert each other's eyes from the other's unclothed form, though Hinata catches sight of a long cut, untreated, on Hanabi's arm and resolves to ask later.

Both sisters know well the way to the wall, and easily weave their way through the roads and alleyways, feet clattering against stone paths and whispering across grass—Hanabi is barefoot—and reach the walls within eighty seconds. They ascend the ladder leaned up against the twelve-foot wall, coming to stand sentry some ways away from Ko and Neji. Whatever god rules the night has taken his or her bucket full of stars and dumped them upon the blank black canvas, spreading liquid jewels like icing on a cake. Below, a crowd is starting to gather, tense and nervous, skin gleaming with cold sweat through their translucent night garments.

As their eyes grow accustomed to the dark and they spread their vein-bulging vision across the clearing, Hanabi sees something and draws in a sharp gasp of breath. "Oh, my God."

Hinata's head swings with an audible snap to where her sister is staring, open-mouthed, and a similar utterance escapes her lips.

Uchiha.

"They must be suicidal!" Hanabi hisses. "There's a reason no clan ever attacks the stronghold of another; they'll be massacred where they stand."

Then, another realization comes to them.

"Hanabi," Hinata whispers, breathless. Her heart is still screaming against the confines of its prison of ribs. "There's only two of them."

.

Shisui is elated when he hears his uncle wants to talk peace with the Hyuuga and can't understand why Itachi seems so sad. He chatters exuberantly and all the while, Itachi just shakes his head and mutters, "You really don't get it, do you Shisui?"

Itachi walks off down the alley, shoulders hunched like those of a leathery bat, looking for all the world like a man being asked to attend his own funeral, and Shisui rolls his eyes in exasperation and shouts after him, cupping mouth in hands,

"Itachi, you big baby! What the hell are you so mopey about? Grow up; you look like your brother! This is a good thing!"

Itachi, of course, never answers. He never does. What an infuriating little man.

At the moment when the Hyuuga tell him, the next morning when everything has finally settled down, that Uchiha Fugaku doesn't need a bodyguard and he can wait _outside_ the mediation chamber, milling around on the grass outside, thank you, Shisui decides that this rankles and, knowing Fugaku almost certainly won't miss him, decides to go exploring. Only in a small epicenter, of course; it would be entirely too embarrassing to get lost in a situation like this.

Staring around at the unbearably impersonal buildings, Shisui can finally understand why Itachi insisted that Shisui be Fugaku's bodyguard instead of himself.

He can understand why Itachi didn't want to come here.

He can understand why Itachi didn't want to come _back _here.

The memories come back like a cassette tape a little beat up and scratched but still playing strong.

When Itachi is four, Fugaku, as a sign of goodwill, hands him over to the Hyuuga as a hostage for his good behavior, during an armistice that is supposed to become a lasting peace. The clan head's only son and heir (Sasuke isn't so much as a twinkling in his parent's eyes at this point) is a valuable commodity to have in their possession, and the Hyuuga jump on the opportunity eagerly. All too eagerly.

No one protests at the time; no one thinks too.

Soon enough, Fugaku breaks the terms of the treaty without sparing so much as a thought to what will happen to Itachi now that he is no longer an honored guest but little more than a prisoner of war. Hyuuga Hiashi considers having him killed—in the quickest, most humane fashion possible, as humane as murder can be anyway; no matter what his father has done, Itachi _is_ just a toddler after all—but it's his brother's advice and calming influence that stays his hand.

Itachi will live. But in some ways, he might as well have been killed.

Even after this, no one thinks to protest. No one speaks out. No one takes a look at the situation and sees anything wrong with it.

No one except Mikoto, which is only to be expected considering she's the boy's mother, but her voice is quickly subdued, and, of course, Shisui, who rants and screams to anyone who will listen and earns a sharp backhand to the face courtesy of Fugaku, and of course _nobody_ listens to him, because Shisui's seven and no one pays attention to the impassioned ravings of a seven-year-old, in any situation.

And the thought going through Shisui's mind, screaming like a dying man begging for air goes about like this: _Why won't anyone listen-why can't any of you see this is wrong-someone do something, anything, __**please**__!_

_Don't leave him there._

Everyone pretends not to notice when Itachi finally comes back just after the birth of his brother and it's plain that he'll never be the same. Nobody cares anyway; Itachi's not a child to them, he's just another warm body to be thrown on the fire of Uchiha ambition, as they watch all the forms twist and curl like paper in the flames. The first time Itachi shows any sign of life at all is when Mikoto finally overcomes her instinctive wariness of the somber, silent, staring child her son has become and lets him hold his baby brother.

Itachi smiles, and reveals a broken tooth.

With sixteen years more experience sitting in layers like the rings of pine wood on his shoulders, Shisui can half understand why Fugaku did it, why he cast Itachi to the four winds.

He can understand why Fugaku the clan head abandoned Itachi, but still can't possibly fathom how Fugaku the _father_ could possibly do such a thing to his only child. Shisui, of course, has long since ceased to see the world in a stark array of black and white, but still can't see any gray patches on the portrait of Uchiha Fugaku.

After Itachi returns, Shisui doesn't shout or scream anymore. He just scowls, shadows Itachi, and throws his arm around his cousin's shoulders any time he can, foolishly believing he can ward off what's followed Itachi home.

The hands of a twenty-three year old man—_not a seven-year-old, not a child, Shisui keeps telling himself_—press momentarily against the walls of a shack, checking for a heartbeat, and Shisui wonders if this was where Itachi played before everything went to Hell and he became a prisoner. Shisui wonders if Itachi had friends here, or if he was just as much a brooding loner among strangers as he was in the company of his own kin.

Shisui smiles slightly, and thinks to himself that in a few days at most it will all have been worth it, that though Itachi will never be able to forget, maybe now with no pall of death hanging over his shoulders he'll be able to take the shutters off his eyes. Shisui knows he will.

The remnants of words on cassette tapes may never die out entirely, but Shisui is determined to make his own memories and overwrite all the faded, washed-out songs.

Soft footsteps come from behind him, weeping on the grass, and Shisui, even unarmed (gesture of good faith that he regrets), whirls around, hand going to the kunai pouch that he moments later remembers isn't there after the frantic searching on his thigh.

A small figure stands in the alleyway of two houses, alabaster hand pressed up against the wall of one. Interrupted light—filtering through straw thatching—dapples over her, bringing out the highlights of long, blue-black hair.

Her eyes open wide as coins for a moment, then break into a tiny, hesitant, _endearing_ smile.

Shisui's mouth drops open, and the sheer dumb luck of what's just happened hits him. What he thinks on realizing that he recognizes the newcomer doesn't bear repeating.

.

The telltale smell of autumn turns to summer, and Hinata stops in her tracks in the narrow alleyway (just barely wide enough that her shoulders don't brush the thin walls around her), tilting her chin up to see who stands before her. Her eyes grow round as coins and whole galaxies of thought spin in and out of existence in a heartbeat. She knows this face.

It's his smile that Hinata's attention is instantly drawn to, like the orbit of a satellite to a star. The tall, lanky Uchiha—Hinata realizes now that he is the one who accompanied his clan head deep into the heart of enemy territory—has large, straight teeth and a wide, flexible mouth. He seems so much more open than his cloaked and shadowed kin, but so much a riddle at the same time. His eyes are open wide, black, not vermillion (Hinata used to believe that all Uchiha had purely crimson eyes, every moment of the day) and Hinata is taken back to last night on the ramparts, watching him and his leader be admitted.

Slow blooms of color, pale pink and deep scarlet, appear suddenly in her rounded cheeks and, out of habit and teaching Hinata bows her head respectfully, black hair falling in a funereal shroud about her, as smiles form on her soft lips, tentative and trembling.

"Hi." It's his voice that breaks the silence, and his voice is a little deeper than what Hinata expects for such a slim man, as her eyes roam upwards and her neck straightens. "I'm Shisui."

A sharp jolt goes through her; Hinata's heard of him, to say the least. Shunsin no Shisui, the most fearsome warrior of the Uchiha clan after their heir Itachi. Hinata never expected this phantom of the Uchiha, the boogeyman of the dreams of Hyuuga children, to have such an easy smile. But it seems right and fitting, somehow. Only those truly comfortable with themselves can earn any sort of the battle success that Shisui has.

"Hinata." She returns with her own name, forcing herself to meet his gaze squarely and deliberately keeping her hands away from the hem of her shirt, folded, palms down, in front of her. She has no desire to start twisting the fabric of her clothes in her hands in front of him.

Shisui tilts his head in confusion, dark curls falling over his eyes before he brushes them away with a long-fingered hand. "Hyuuga Hiashi's daughter?" His voice is pure incredulity, and so much more human than the normally cold stares and hard voices of his clan. "I thought you were younger."

Again, pink flushes her cheeks as Hinata wets her dry lips and looks away for a moment. "I suspect that you are thinking of my sister, Hanabi." Shame knots her stomach as she realizes she can't bring herself to speak at normal decibels. A pause comes. "She's ten."

He nods, pushing out his lower lip slightly as he frowns, understanding. "Yeah, that makes sense. I heard he had two kids." A slightly goofy grin comes over the man's face as he stuffs his hands in his pockets. "I guess you look like your mom; you're a hell of a lot better-looking than your old man."

This time, not pink, but crimson. And, within a second, blanches to bone white. "Umm…umm…" Hinata curses inwardly as she realizes that she's fallen back on her stuttering. "…Thank you?"

Shisui's whole demeanor changes when he sees the newfound pallor of her face, brow furrowing. "Right," he mutters awkwardly, more to himself than to Hinata. When he turns eyes black as polished jet back up to Hinata, he grins again, flashing his teeth. They look like the old polished statues Hinata has seen sometimes when travelling—ivory figurines made out of the tusks of elephants unfortunate enough to find themselves snared. "Well, Fugaku-sama's gonna be mighty pissed if I'm not back when he and your father finish up, so…Bye!"

Hinata gapes at the place where he was standing, indentations still in the grass from his boots, and turns her head to the side to smile a little wistfully, before slipping out of the alleyway, and gliding back towards the home she shares with her sister.

Hanabi later narrows her eyes and squints at her, and asks Hinata why she's so upbeat and cheerful all of a sudden, and Hinata doesn't answer her, only gently tapping her sister on the shoulder.

When he gets back to the outside of the building where Hiashi and Fugaku are hashing out the finer points of a peace treaty, Shisui takes a moment to make sure no one's around to watch, and then slaps his forehead soundly.

_Fantastic… Most accomplished flirt of the Uchiha clan, and you can't even strike up a decent conversation with this girl._

.

Fugaku and Hiashi conclude negotiations two days later, and when he and Shisui are set to leave, the latter discreetly cranes his neck around, searching for Hinata's face in the crowd.

The faces that meet his gaze are mostly distrustful—none of them trust the Uchiha, and not without reason, but if Shisui were a little stupider and even less mindful of propriety he'd tell them to get over themselves and realize that peace, even with the guys you hate, is a hell of a lot better than war.

There is no sign of Hinata's face, and, despite himself and his best intentions, Shisui can't keep the sting of disappointment out of the pit of his stomach.

.

All hope for lasting peace dies three months later with the perishing earth. The Uchiha break their treaty with the Hyuuga when the glittering snow will muffle their approach, capitalizing on the fact that after three months, the Hyuuga have finally gone off their guard, not expecting an attack, and the snow around remote outposts melt as the wooden buildings go up in flames.

The ground is again littered with the bodies of Hyuuga and Uchiha dead, and the earth is once more nourished by their blood.

On the first night, Shisui immediately goes to find Itachi, who is sitting up at his desk, writing reports to the light of a single candle (Sasuke is fast asleep on a tatami mat on the other side of the room, and being a deep sleeper, doesn't hear his cousin as he slams the door up against the wall).

"You knew." Shisui's voice is hissing and accusatory, infused with more caustic vitriol than he ever thought possible for himself.

Itachi looks up at him, and Shisui's anger immediately leaves him. Dark eyes are heavier and sadder than ever, red-bordered and shot with crimson veins. A hand that's been resting against his forehead leaves his bangs sticky and sticking out to one awkward angle. He doesn't even bother lying—it's so like Itachi to tell the truth and not care about the consequences—as he answers.

"And I couldn't do a thing about it."

.

Hinata hates winter because it is the time of death. Not only for plant life, but for her people, and all living things. That anyone survives winter is nothing short of a miracle, since winter operates actively to destroy all things living. The snow gathers in her hair like a gossamer veil, glistening silk threads woven tightly together, and, with unwonted irritation, she shakes the already melting flakes out.

One Jyuuken strike after another, and Uchiha and their allies fall; she's getting better at this—experience is the mother of skill, as her uncle is fond of saying during training, and Hinata will find plenty of that this frigid, snowy winter.

A flash of light catches her vein-bulging eyes, and Hinata sweeps around, hair spinning, expecting to see an enemy with kunai or tanto or katana raised, ready to blow fireballs of ridiculous strength and heat to melt the snow and incinerate her.

There is none of that.

Instead, all she sees is Shisui, standing ten feet from her and half-peeking from out behind a slender ash tree. His gray coat has the collar turned up and buttoned, and the snow in his hair makes him look like a much older man.

In an echo of months long since past, he flashes a wide grin and a wink at her.

But it's not the same. It's stained, it's tarnished—

It's sad.

And within a second, he flickers, and is gone.


End file.
